getting sound in ubuntu

[maverick2604]

hey guys, i just recently installed ubuntu on my rig (dual boot with windowsxp) and cant get sound from my creative soundblaster game ed. any leads?

 

[Nothinman]

It's a regular SBLive? By default ALSA has all of the outputs muted, did you check the volume?

 

[sourceninja]

you need to go into alsamixer and turn off digital so its using the analog sound. I dont know why digital is the default, but it is.

You can use a graphical interface provided by gnome to do this, or open a console and type alsamixer and do it there.

 

[maverick2604]

it's just an audigy.

and i went into the alsamixer in the terminal and turned on "analog to IEC958 output"... that is the only setting that said anything about analog and digital.

-- still to no avail.

 

[drag]

Ya, I have a Audigy, too. Been using it for a long time and I am familar with it's mixer settings.

In alsamixer it shows the actual mixer capabilities built into the hardware for the sound card.. most mixers are more like Windows-style were you are presented with a software abstracted version. There are a unusually high number of mixer settings you can mess with, but most you don't touch.. they do weird things that I have no clue about.

The one for the digital out on/off is labled 'Audigy Analogue/Digital Output Jack', I beleive. I can't remember for sure though since I am not at my computer... I would have better instructions then. In order to see it you have to go all the way right and it's off the screen normally when you open up alsamixer. You'd want to make sure that is 'muted' since that's how you turn off digital out.

Also you'd want to make sure that (although I am not sure of the exact names) that 'master', 'pcm', and analog mixer volumes are all up around 70-80% or so and are umuted. Anything higher and you can get distortion pretty easily out of the sound card.


Also be sure that you have the right output to your speakers. There are 3 outputs, front stereo, rear stereo, and center/LFE. The Center/LFE confused me for a long time... LFE = low frequency effects and is what would go to your subwoofer, and center is obviously center out. Both come out of the same min-plug output and one is left out, and the other is right. I forget which is which. Find a manual or get the PDF version from creative's website.

 

[daniel49]

also once you found the right switch . Drag is right it was way over to the right off the screen.

There is also under sound on the start menu/then volume control/file/ and where it says change devices see if you have alsa or oss selected although both shold work you have to turn both on.

Beats me why a default setting would be muted too:disgust:

 

[maverick2604]

i do not see an option labeled "analogue/digital output jack"

these are my options:
master (set at 71)
master mono (off)
3d control - center (set to 0)
3d control - depth (set to 0)
3d control - switch [off]
PCM (set to 71)
surround (off)
surround down mix [off]
center [set at 71)
center/LFE down mix [on}
LFE [off]
line [off]
line-in as surround [off]
cd [set to 71]
mic [set to 74]
mic as center/lfe [off]
mic boost [off]
mic select [on mic 1]
video [off[
phone [off]
iec958 [on]
iec958 input monitor [off]
iec958 playback ac97-spsa [set to 67]
pc speaker [set to 67]
aux [off]
mono output select [set to mix]
analogue to iec958 output [off]
duplicate front [off]
exchange center/LFE [off]
external amplifier [on]
swap surround slot [off]

i've even gone back and tried to turn analogue to iec958 output "on", and it does not put the sound on... do i need to restart? other than that... am i missing something?

 

[maverick2604]

Originally posted by: daniel49
There is also under sound on the start menu/then volume control/file/ and where it says change devices see if you have alsa or oss selected although both shold work you have to turn both on.

Beats me why a default setting would be muted too:disgust:

now this helped. i set the device to my sound blaster and unmuted the device... now how do i turn off the digital on my soundblaster ? how do i open the alsamixer to view my soundblaster not my realtek-onboard-pos?

 

[TGS]

I would disable the onboard in the bios if you don't plan on using it. IIRC by turning on analog, it is disabling the digital out. Someone that uses both will have to correct me if I'm wrong.

I can double check the menu, but for ubuntu I know the cli alsamixer has the option. I use apt-get the gui version because it's a little nicer looking. Both should have the option to switch between hardware.

 

[drag]

For the alsamixer from the command line see the man file. 'man alsamixer'

It has a option for selecting the number of the sound card. The counting starts at 0, I believe.. so to select the 2nd sound card you go:
alsamixer -c 1

But to save you pain later on it's a good idea just to reboot to disable the onboard audio. Otherwise ever time you do a kernel upgrade and such it'll try to use it.

The driver for the audigy would be 'snd-emu10k1' btw.

 

[Nothinman]

Beats me why a default setting would be muted too

Because there's no good default volume setting so muting everything is the safest setting. Picking something like 10% would end up being quiet enough to basically be muted anyway on a lot of cards, turning the volume up to 50% or higher could be high enough to wake people up in the next room on some cards.

 

[daniel49]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Beats me why a default setting would be muted too

Because there's no good default volume setting so muting everything is the safest setting. Picking something like 10% would end up being quiet enough to basically be muted anyway on a lot of cards, turning the volume up to 50% or higher could be high enough to wake people up in the next room on some cards.

naw I can't buy that. For heavens sake look how many people install soundcards in windows without it being muted and all those sleeping people in the next room seem to survive.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: daniel49

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Beats me why a default setting would be muted too

Because there's no good default volume setting so muting everything is the safest setting. Picking something like 10% would end up being quiet enough to basically be muted anyway on a lot of cards, turning the volume up to 50% or higher could be high enough to wake people up in the next room on some cards.

naw I can't buy that. For heavens sake look how many people install soundcards in windows without it being muted and all those sleeping people in the next room seem to survive.

BOLD!

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: daniel49

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Beats me why a default setting would be muted too

Because there's no good default volume setting so muting everything is the safest setting. Picking something like 10% would end up being quiet enough to basically be muted anyway on a lot of cards, turning the volume up to 50% or higher could be high enough to wake people up in the next room on some cards.

naw I can't buy that. For heavens sake look how many people install soundcards in windows without it being muted and all those sleeping people in the next room seem to survive.[/b]

What is the perfect default for every configuration on all supported platforms?

 

[Nothinman]

naw I can't buy that. For heavens sake look how many people install soundcards in windows without it being muted and all those sleeping people in the next room seem to survive.

I've had a few circumstances where a friend of mine booted up a machine after a fresh install only to yell "holy sh!t" as he scrambles for the volume control. And it's not like it's unfixable, if a distro wants to set the default volumes they can do it with amixer in their initial setup scripts.

 

[daniel49]

What is the perfect default for every configuration on all supported platforms?

33.33%

 

[Nothinman]

I realize you said that tongue-in-cheek, but I almost can't hear my speakers here at 50%, so I would bet that 33% would be nearly silent.

 

[maverick2604]

got it working guys. thanks a lot!!